Matchup Discussion: Wii Fit Trainer Vs. Sheik

[John12346]

I figured I'd crack one of these open for the Matchup Hub, eh?

I'm going to discuss this matchup from the perspective of Customs banned, although I'll include any pertinent information regarding specific Custom Specials that can help in certain scenarios.

So, we all know that Sheik is a very difficult character to fight against. As it stands, she is the best in the game right now, with her amazing zoning, neutral up close, and recovery. Of course, Wii Fit excels quite well in avoiding edgeguards, so as long as we stay alert, Sheik is VERY unlikely to snatch any early stocks from us while we're offstage. However, that only means so much when she still has her Dthrow Uair/Vanish mixup to close out stocks at criminally low percents. That's the matchup in a nutshell, so let's look into it a little bit.

Zoning: I'm going to get this out there right now; Sheik is not a character we want to be charging our Sun Salutation in front of if she's at the same ground level as us. Not unless you like eating Needles. In fact, we want to dissuade Sheik from throwing Needles at us as much as we possibly can. Obviously I wouldn't suggest straight up approaching since Wii Fit's approach options are somewhat weak, and Sheik can stuff whatever we have with ease. We need to make Sheik approach us, and we have to be ready for it when it happens.

A basic maneuver I would suggest for this matchup is to quickly and persistently throw out a lot of Suns. Since even an uncharged one does 5 damage, we actually win or tie on the damage trade at long distances. In addition, we can utilize our crouch and crawl to get under Needles as well. With these two tricks, we can at least get Sheik to come to us, which is probably the best we could hope for in this matchup. Just be careful about how you're going to zone Sheik, because she may pull out a Bouncing Fish out of nowhere to blow you up for shooting Suns or crouching carelessly. In addition, all three of her grabs can snag us while we're crouching or crawling, so be on the lookout for that too.

We can also use Headers in the zoning war every once in a while, but be careful because if Sheik decides to approach when you do that, you're gonna be in big trouble.

Fighting Up Close: So hopefully by the time this phase of the fight has started, it's Sheik who came to us, and not the other way around. Even though this is the better out to the matchup, it's still extremely difficult to handle an approaching Sheik. Between her ridiculous roll, her low lag aerials, and extreme damage conversions off stray hits, we have to be very careful in how we try to fight back. What I suggest is a dynamic spacing game where we're constantly trying to stay out of range of attack, but not so far that she might start throwing Needles at you again. All the while, we're looking for our moments to get those counter hits in.

- This is probably the most important part of the matchup, but our Utilt beats Sheik's Fair, Nair, AND Bair clean, or at the very least gets a trade. The difficult part of this is that we need good timing and reaction on the use of this move, where Sheik can really choose any time to fake you out. At low percents Sheik can also punish us on hit, but that's not too big of a deal. If you see Sheik do a full hop to adjust her timing against you, you can react to this and bumrush her with Uairs.
- If we manage to corner Sheik to the edge of a stage, she's going to do either one of two things most likely: roll away from the edge, or jump really high up and Bouncing Fish away. Both of these are extremely hard to punish unless you correctly guess they're going to happen. If you think a roll is coming, then be ready with Ftilt. If you think she's going to escape to the sky, try to stuff it early with a Uair, and if it misses, shoot a Header at her afterwards. Try your absolute hardest not to lose the advantage you made for yourself.
- Our Dash Attack is a reasonably good burst option that can surprise a Sheik who's persistently trying to keep a specific spacing going.
- At percents from about 0% - 10%, we can Uthrow Uair light fastfallers like Sheik for a quick 22% damage.
- On hit, our Jab is almost guaranteed to ground fastfallers and heavy opponents. Sheik falls into this category, and allows us to get a nice 20% off a successful Jab > Dtilt.
- If Customs are legal, Jumbo Hoop can be a very nice way to stop Sheik from applying pressure momentarily, and rack up a lot of damage if we get the hit because she's a fastfaller. Just be careful to ALWAYS land on the ledge after use, because Sheik gets a tipper Usmash guaranteed on the landing after your Jumbo Hoop ends.
- If Customs are legal and you have it on the set you're using, Weighted Header can also be a good way to negotiate space with Sheik. I personally don't recommend it for this matchup in particular, because from my experience most Sheiks can easily move around it or even hit it back at us, but it can help in terms of racking up damage or forcing Sheik to move in ways we want her to. I still value normal Header far more in this matchup, because of its ability to stave off Sheik edgeguards more effectively and ability to chase her down if she retreats with Bouncing Fish, but if you see some special potential hidden in Weighted Header, then by all means, go for it.
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So that's what I've got to work with. From my experience my biggest issues in fighting this matchp are escaping the ridiculous Dthrow mixups which steal my stocks way too early, and getting successful edgeguards outside of using Jumbo Hoop to catch Sheik on her one frame vulnerabilities.

What do you guys think? This is definitely a matchup we need to understand, so let's get to it, then! Leave your input!

 

[Macchiato]

I think we should have two scores, one for defualt and one for customs.

 

[John12346]

I would say slight disadvantage borderlining on solid disadvantage in either format, although we obviously have it better in customs.

I like to use 1121 vs. Sheik. The Jumbo Hoop has its obvious uses, but default Header has more utility here than Weighted Header does IMO. If we're forced to use default Hoops, it's still not too shabby because it allows us to go super deep vs. Sheik's edgeguards AND vs. Sheik's recovery attempts minus the ledge vulnerability thing which we can just nail with Bairs.

 

[⑨ball]

Sheik's needles have an absurd travel time (5 frames) but the start up iirc is 11 for a single needle/partial charge, and 16 for the full storm. So while I wouldn't say never charge SS in front of her, you definitely need to keep your eyes on her at all times so that you can shield on reaction while retaining the ability to crush would be BF punishes with charge cancel usmashes. Charge canceling in sh header is also worth keeping in the arsenal and is a much better projectile to use in general from fullscreen where her needles won't reach and where SS won't reach in time to trade.

Staying just outside of fair's range is generally where you want to be when you're not zoning as you want Sheik to be attempting fast fall fairs rather than trying to wall you out so you can punish her landing with utilt or burst options. As long as you're crouching the jumpsquat it's not terribly hard to time utilt against her aerials as fair doesn't hit nearly low enough to make us commit early or open tomahawk traps. Speaking of which I'm pretty sure Sheik actually can not grab us crouching unless we crawl or go into our idle animation.

Like with everyone else, in the air you want to stay below her or challenge horizontally with projectiles and the occasional ffbair. Similar to cornering her at the edge of the stage, she'll look to BF out of juggles and traps so you should look for it as well to punish landings with header, ss or setup jab header so you have a reasonable approach to keep on pressure.

Adding onto somethings Numbers has said, Sheik is a fast faller, so while the uthrow>uair is guaranteed at 0%, she also suffers from jab>reverse ftilt>uair until death making jab a great candidate for use especially with deepbreathing. This also means nair>[...]>uair kill combos work easier, but I haven't worked out how rage works yet so it might be difficult to know when it works. You can put a damper on BF escapes by trying to stay on stages with platforms like Battlefield and Dreamland. Yes she does get tipper usmash on them(not sure about Dreamland) but it's honestly not nearly as swaying as being unable to BF out of pressure or punish SS shots on reaction. Haven't found much use for customs here outside of enriched/sweeping sun for better trades(enriched for damage and speed, sweeping for stage positioning). Jumbo is always good on any set really as it keeps the same properties regardless of the character. Look to catch early bouncing fish on recovery and carry her into the blastzone as well as vanish for 1 frame vulnerability damage racking + stage spike combos. Keep an eye on her needle choice more than anything in customs as penetrating doesn't go as far giving you more room to zone while losing a lot more on shield. Gravity grenade is usually used on ledge stand to combo into usmash, but it doesn't work well against WFT's edge options.

We don't have any 50/50's from throw but DB+ rage does make uthrow a kill throw(fthrow and bthrow too if you're playing on a platform close to blastzone like on smashville which I'd ban). We also get incomparably stronger options when edgeguarding and much earlier at that. Hitting the 1 frame vulnerability on vanish is not hard at all and only gets easier when you opt for header which is optimal anyway. Outside of that header is a great option if you read ledge jump which Sheik's use moreso than other characters thanks to BF invincibility and generally good aerials. It also combos into dair and SS on ledgestand. Dropping header is a good way to cover both stand and roll from the ledge as it extends hitboxes just like with the spike for ftilt,dsmash and fsmash punishes. Charging SS in between is your best bet for low risk/high reward as SS can catch the 1 frame on ledge stand easily enough and charge cancels in nair>usmash to kill as early as 69% without rage.

It can easily become a war of attrition if neither can land a kill as Sheik kills with a thousand cuts and WFT looks for trades but it's one I think she can come out on top of just by virtue of living longer and having far earlier kill opportunities.

I'm going to do some testing for input buffering out of hitstun to see how effective DB is against juggles.

 

[SuaveChaser]

This great stuff i'm getting some great info.

 

[Wii Twerk Trainer]

Don't care or be concerned with the damage sheik gives you. Just avoid bouncing fish and down throw to up air combos and your good to go.

I survive ridiculous per cents vs sheik, but I kill her at low percent lol every time I fight sheiks I'll have like 160- almost 200% and I'll kill her with one up air or back air at low percents lol

Sheik is very light and combo food. She cannot break out of Nair comBo's and dies very fast. Always keep a full charged sun salutation. Gets her out of bouncing fish. Also if you know sheik will bouncing fish. Always throw a short hop cancelled header. That'll knock her out of the animation.

Don't be scared with sheik combing you because as long as you avoid her bouncing fish! up b and up air. She cannot kill you lol best she can kill you is with fair at like 180-200% lol

I tend to kill sheiks around 70-120% because of rage and deep breathing.

Deep breathing side tilt with rage will kill sheik at like 100% lol

Play defensive and don't get too aggressive vs her. Avoid her 3 kill moves(which are easy to avoid).

I love the Sheik MU and would rather fight her over Mario, Villager, Diddy Kong, Pikachu and Sonic any day lol I also love fighting against Rosalinas

 

[⑨ball]

Just avoid bouncing fish and down throw to up air combos and your good to go.

As far as I know this is a 50/50 because of the way buffering works (you can airdodge out of hitstun a couple frames before you can jump). Airdodge beats uair, but loses to baits like vanish.

I've been meaning to test different DI against it to reduce the likelihood of baits, but I've been a little busy. Is there something in particular you use?

 

[Wii Twerk Trainer]

I just air dodge at high prevents because sheiks will almost always try to get that down throw to up air cheese at super high percentage. They'll mostly go for down throw into up b when you have somewhat high damage aroun 90%~120%. Percentage they know that down throw to up air will not kill.

 

[HoSmash4]

I just air dodge at high prevents because sheiks will almost always try to get that down throw to up air cheese at super high percentage. They'll mostly go for down throw into up b when you have somewhat high damage aroun 90%~120%. Percentage they know that down throw to up air will not kill.

At high percents GOOD sheiks will often fish out your airdodge with uair, so the 50/50 situation doesnt change. Best option percentage wise is to always jump away and di outwards

 

[PokemonVirus]

This thread is so helpful, I'm an up and coming Wii Fit Trainer main. And this thread is giving me info on a character is have trouble with at times. If there's any other helpful Wii Fit threads anyone can point me towards let me know. :]

 

[⑨ball]

This thread is so helpful, I'm an up and coming Wii Fit Trainer main. And this thread is giving me info on a character is have trouble with at times. If there's any other helpful Wii Fit threads anyone can point me towards let me know. :]

Nutrition and Supplements: The WFT Compendium, Index, and FAQ

(:

 

[Macchiato]

I guess this might be good to know. Utilt beats Sheik's Fair so that might be useful. At low percents, Sheik can Nair you afterwards, but at mid or high percents, utilt is perfect for stopping Fair.